Darkly Dreaming Dead
by darklydreamingdead
Summary: "Through the ages, we'd heard tales of vampire hunters, but we've never come across one in my thousand years. I'm rather disappointed." "Funny," the woman snickered. "That was my sentiment when I met my first vampire. Right before I cut off his head." Godric is bored with his existence and his progenies are worried. But days like these, he is reminded what it is to feel. Godric/OC.
1. Chapter 1

"Why do you think I'm a monster?" a child pleaded at a woman as she chained his skinny legs twice, three times over. After glancing at her work, she tightened the chain connected to the collar at his throat. "I just want to go home to my mommy."

His eyes were wide, innocent, not for a second leaving her face.

The woman did not reply to his complaints or his begging as she worked deftly and silently. It was quite obvious that she had perfected the art of torture and bondage. Everything was wiped clean, too clean. The room smelled of old bleach and various sanitizers. An array of gleaming metal tools lay on display in an arranged fashion on a surgical table nearby, without being close enough for anyone to possibly reach, even if they stretched their bodies to do so. She was there now, seemingly pondering over her selection.

"What is it you want?" the child asked shrilly. He rattled his chains, perhaps in an attempt to get the stranger's attention. "Please, just let me go home to my mommy."

The woman drew into the light with objects from the table in either hand: a polished dagger with an ebony handle carved into the shape of an angel with silver wings drawn against its body and an ampoule of crimson liquid. Holding the dagger out into the light for her prisoner to see, the boy went dead still.

"Please don't hurt me," the boy begged. His voice went cold as she drew closer, an alien, guttural voice that sounded foreign coming from a child's mouth. "Just look at me. I promise I'll be good if you just look at me."

He snarled triumphantly when her gaze flitted to his face and landed at his eyes. Her face, already slack, waited.

"Release me, you insolent swine," he commanded with the same guttural voice. "Then stand still and shut up while I rip you to shreds with my bare hands."

A glow of pure self-satisfaction beamed from his eyes as his soon-to-be-dead abductor closed the few steps between them and raised a hand. . .

. . .and pressed the dagger against his cheek.

As if he had been struck by hot coals, the boy lurched and howled in pain and fury. His eyes were insane with rage. The metal bit into his skin and a bead of blood slid down the length of the blade and smoke dribbled from the wound.

"Let's see those pearly whites, then," the woman finally spoke.

The boy growled, eyes blazing, "Fuck you."

She used the blade to pull back his lips. Where two blunt lateral incisors had been, gleaming in the dim light were two fangs peaked from angry, red gums.

"Quite the little mouth you have on you. Now what would 'mommy' think?"

Satisfied with what she saw, she sheathed the dagger beneath her jacket and reverently held the ampoule in front of her face.

"I'm going to tear you to pieces, you little bitch," the little vampire hissed angrily. "My Maker is part of the Authority. I have been alive longer than it took your imbecile ancestors to figure out how to fuck one another."

The woman, ignoring all the curses spewed at her, said a prayer in a language the vampire had not heard. Then her eyes snapped open, the pupils completely swallowed by iris, and she uncorked the ampoule.

"Do you know what this is, child?"

Completely still, the child vampire breathed heavily over and over as his pupils dilated. His fangs flashed as he snapped his mouth in the direction of the vial. His whole body strained against the chains, despite the enormous billows of smoke emanating from his smoldering skin.

"The blood of Lillith! Give it to me now!" He licked his lips as if parched, rivulets of bloody drool staining his torn shirt. "Give it to me. _Please_."

His begging now showed the woman how much of a farce the earlier show had been. She laughed cruelly.

"Lillith?" she said. "No. This is the blood of angels, of the holiest of holy, of the one true god, of the Son."

Despite the feeding frenzy that had overtaken him, he took a moment to look surprised or concerned. Always hard to tell with the unfeeling dead creatures of the night.

She smiled and placed a drop of the blood on a dissolvable square of paper, returned the ampoule to its original place, then wafted the paper in front of the child's nose.

The smell of the blood so close to the vampire's face made him yowl and crow with pain.

"I'll do anything you ask," the vampire gasped, the silver chains nearly slicing off his limbs as he strained further against them.

"Tell me where the Dallas nest is."

He choked out a laugh as the silver chain around his throat cut into his jugular. "They'll kill me if I tell you. Their leader is over two-thousand years old."

"Looks like you're doing a fine job killing yourself." With a surprising amount of strength, the woman coiled the chains around one hand and, with the other, squeezed his throat. His eyes bugged. "You'll heal once I give you this blood. You'll be stronger. You'll be euphoric. You might even think you will be able to kill me. Let me assure you, little fangling, there is no chance you are walking away from this alive. Er, well, in your case, as alive as you are now. You are going to meet the True Death. It is up to you whether you wish to go with a smile or in what I am told is the worst possible painful thirst in your existence."

"You're going to try to kill them when I tell you," the vampire said, resigned.

"Yes, but they've already been dead for a long time."

He laughed again but this time blood dribbled from his mouth. "I don't know what you are, but they will kill you. Godric is death incarnate. His progeny is merciless. You don't stand a chance."

Still holding him by the throat, she placed the blood paper against her lips. "Fine, I will not waste the blood."

"Wait! I'll tell you!"

She stilled, mouth open, the paper millimeters from her tongue.

He licked his lips. With eyes locked on the blood, the vampire told her the location. He trembled and held open his mouth expectantly.

"You can go to the True Death knowing you have done the right thing," the woman murmured before throwing the paper over her shoulder.

The child screamed in such a high-pitch, she had to plug an ear to keep the sound from rupturing the ear drum. She thrust her fist forward, the stake mechanism in her sleeve going straight into his still little vampire heart. He burst like a water balloon loaded with blood.

She closed her eyes and sighed blissfully, raising her face to the heavens. When she opened them, her pupils had returned. She wiped a bit of vampire off her sleeve and smirked at a figure standing in the corner of the room, cloaked in shadow.

"We have some work to do."


	2. Chapter 2

_**1945 - Germany**_

For many years, Eric the Viking had longed to return to the way things had once been between his maker, his made sister, and himself. Scores of years with his maker—later on, with a newly made sister—had spoiled Eric to the world. Once upon a time, a vampire could take what he wanted when he wanted it and humans were far too afraid and weak to do anything about it.

"Do you think we should try the Americas?" Eric grunted in the old language, slipping into the words as if it were a well-worn coat, familiar and fitting. He wiped the rest of his dinner, a small group of American prisoners of war left to rot now that the Nazi resistance had failed, from his face.

The maker, slight of build, reached up to the tall Viking and touched his hands to Eric's mouth. Coming away with blood staining his fingertips, Godric examined the red as if it held the answers to the great questions of the universe. There was no trace of smile on the cherubic face that had become as familiar to the Viking as his own over the thousand years they had been together.

_A boy in appearance, _Eric thought. _A boy strong enough to crush a human with a finger, strong enough to destroy me on a whim, if that were his desire._

"Nora has been after me for it. And it would be well to let the Europeans repopulate. The wolves and war have not been kind to them. Though I cannot imagine we have helped much, either," Godric admitted with a faint smirk.

"Nora claims that the women have gotten used to the freedom they were given while their men fight the war. They wear pants and smoke and drink and curse. Nora absolutely loves it," Eric snickered, laying the American accent on thick. It had not only been the way of life that had changed but his made sister, too.

"It is settled then. Shall we depart tomorrow?"

Though not truly a question, Godric had never pressured his progeny with unnecessary commands. Eric inclined his head, as was polite, and threw the body of the man he'd eaten into the harbor with the rest of the American prisoners, in the same manner as one discards the cob of a corn into the rubbish bin.

It had never been necessary for Godric to command his progeny. Eric would never question him.

That is, until Arella.

_**1953 – United States**_

Godric had an all-American woman by the throat and was fucking her senseless. The woman groaned and the cords in her throat pulsed and beckoned.

Eric, a pale sliver in the dark beside his maker, twisted and writhed. His fangs were fully extended and gleamed just as brightly as his pale skin. Nora clutched her made brother, restraining him or trying to restrain herself, Godric could not tell. They both watched and waited while stroking, touching, teasing.

This was often the ritual: the two progenies watching as their maker took the victim, bled her, and then took the first sip. 'Blessing the food,' Nora had called it. The rite had once been exciting, sensual, fulfilling.

The two-thousand year old teenage vampire was bored. He sighed, withdrew from the woman, and slit her artery as easily as taking a slice of air for breath.

"Drink, children."

Nora and Eric stared in confusion at their maker. Eric's eyes were clouded with suspicion but the younger Nora appeared dumbstruck in her haze of bloodlust.

Nora spoke first. "Don't you want any, Godric?"

"I am not hungry. Allay your fears and eat, Nora," Godric ordered. But before he'd finished his sentence, she had already latched onto the open wound.

Godric already had a foot out the door.

Once in the cold December air, he felt some of the webs of bloodlust clear from his thoughts. He knew, undoubtedly, Eric would question him later. Eric had always known him best, could almost read his maker's thoughts, the small imprints of emotion overflowing into his progeny's mind. But he did not care to express would he could not even admit to himself.

The night sky held nothing but stars, he had realized long ago. Any and all gods had forsaken him. They could not save his soul, if there was anything left of it, he was sure. And he did not believe in Lillith, as most vampires chose to believe.

Without knowing where his feet were taking him, though he watched their movement with interest, he was without direction. As listless in body as in mind.

The woman he had taken tonight, he hoped, now lay with whichever god she chose to believe in. So strange, that thought was, that Godric paused in the moment to wonder why he even cared about some human and the state of her soul.

A boy's voice called out to him, "Hey, mister!"

Godric froze and raked his eyes back and forth over the surrounding area. This area… he was near an orphanage. Why would the careless staff lose track of one of the children in the dead of the night?

Before he could help himself, Godric was standing beside the boy, gaping down into his face. God help him, his eyes were identical to Marcus's, the boy his master and maker had taken and destroyed before Godric. The same eyes of the boy that had once been trusting and innocent.

Such a life Marcus could have had, with his hands making a life for him and his family. Godric would have visited them from time to time, perhaps even taking up the neighboring land. He would have died of old age, happy, with his wife and children and grandchildren by his side. Godric would grieve but would be fulfilled knowing that Marcus had truly lived a full life.

"Are you all right?" the boy, of a pubescent age, asked, pointing to Godric's hand. "You're bleeding everywhere."

"What's your name, child?"

"Benjamin, but I ain't no kid."

"No, no. Of course not, Benjamin," Godric reassured. He arched his back, standing upright, and placed his bloody hand on the teen's shoulder. "Do you believe in God?"

Taken aback at the strange turn in conversation, the boy licked his lips and peered over his shoulder. His fear levels were rising, Godric could smell it. He fiddled with the slicked back hair tucked behind his cumbersome ears, a nervous habit. Godric noticed two of Benjamin's fingers were missing. He had worked hard, or had been abused, possibly both, in his young life. So many things reminded him of Marcus, and of himself, long, long ago.

"Um, yeah, sure. Doesn't everyone?"

"If you believe in God," Godric wondered, "why would He put you in death's path?"

Benjamin was now visibly shaken. By now, Godric was sure, Benjamin had noticed the vampire's strange lack of clouded breath-air that came with winter, the paleness of the skin, the eyes that held knowledge no teenager had accumulated. He began turning away before Godric caught him by the wrist. Their eyes met and the boy went slack as Godric prodded the naïve mind with his glamor.

"Answer the question," the vampire commanded. "Why are you out here right now, this late at night?"

"Sometimes the head mistress will let me slip out at night if I do… things for her first." Benjamin's voice squeaked and quavered before he went on, compelled to answer in entirety. "I go down to the bar. Sometimes I catch lost women and steal their purses."

"And do you think God put us together on this night for a reason?"

"I…" Benjamin's brow was slick was sweat and he licked his lips again. "I dunno. Mama usedta say that everythin' happens in God's reason."

"Where is your mother now?"

"Dead." Both sweat and tears were now slicking the youth's face.

A smile appeared on Godric's face, a knowing smile, as if the two had shared a wonderful secret.

Everyone Godric had ever loved had died. Marcus had died. And then Godric had died. He had then killed his master, his maker. He would never know what it felt like to be alive again. Nor would poor Marcus, whom had been unflinchingly loyal to their master, had taken the punches in Godric's place, had taken their master's anger for Godric's disobedience. Why should it be fair that this human get to live Marcus's life with Marcus's eyes when Marcus's bones had all but dissolved into the earth long since?

It was Marcus's death at the hands of their master that played out in front of Godric's eyes as he took Benjamin's face in his hands and stared hard into his face.

"God has abandoned you," Godric said, still with that same secretive smile.

He snapped his hands to the side and Benjamin crumpled at his feet.

"Ah," Godric sighed and raised his eyes to the empty stars winking at him. "Much better."

But when he lay in slumber that night, he found Marcus staring accusingly into his face, into his soul. And he felt a singular thread of... remorse.

* * *

_I realize that I've killed two "kids" in a row here, but it's strictly meant to show the differing scales between the two characters. I do not condone hurting children in any way shape or form. Godric is still without regrets or remorse, death incarnate. What made him start to change his ways? We'll explore that soon._

_That being said, I always wondered what happened between Eric and Godric-as mentioned in the show-that happened 50 years pre-dating the show that separated them or at least kept one or the other from wanting to be together. By the end, we'll see my theory/version on why that separation happened._


	3. Chapter 3

The next day, Godric was unsure whether his guilt tricked his mind into making his muscles achy or whether he had tossed and turned in his slumber. More likely the latter. Something was weighing heavily on his mind. What it was, however, remained as elusive as the stars in a city sky. The harder he thought about it, the more it escaped his focus.

Eric's coffin lid scraped dryly open a few moments after Godric had dressed. "Nora is returning to the Authority today. I wish to speak with you about last night once she has left."

"Very well," Godric muttered, making sure to keep his expression and tone one and the same: a very careful neutral. "I have business to attend to at the nest. I expect Nora will wish to say her goodbyes when she wakes. Inform her of where I am."

Obedient as always, Eric bowed his face and replied, "Yes, Godric."

Godric placed a fingertip on Nora's plain coffin in passing, thinking fondly of how well the young ones seemed to sleep. He found himself wondering idly when he had last felt truly rested.

...

At the nest, Godric was met by an ambivalent, small group of vampires. The nest had not been formed long, members had come and gone, but there were a few promising younglings he had high hopes for.

Isabel Beaumont, his second only to Eric, one of the younglings he thought well of, stood expectantly at the front of a loosely formed line. This ritual had somehow begot itself, lines forming for the sheriff each time he arrived at the nest. A more human trait, being bound by habits and tradition.

The sheriff reclined in his chair and motioned her forward with a finger.

"Velle went missing last night," Isabel burst, lines of worry creasing her face and drawing out her accent. "Normally I would not bring such a small matter to your attention, but someone saw two women drag him away. The situation is quite irregular."

One brow arched, he studied her face for any trace of deceit. The sharp lines of her face did not falter in sincerity the slightest inch.

"You do realize," Godric pointed out, "two human women could not overpower a two-hundred year old vampire? Did they silver him?"

"That's just it, Godric," Isabel murmured. She paused, looked to the quiet faces behind her, and then turned to stare Godric hard in the face with a lifted chin. "They were completely unarmed. I know it sounds outrageous, but there was a very reliable witness—"

"Where is the witness?" the elder demanded, sweeping his sea blue-green eyes over the crowd of worried faces. "Why did he not intervene?"

"He did but he was unsuccessful in his attempt to stop them. He was so rattled by the event that I commanded him to sleep for the day and meet with you tonight. But he—he met the true death in his coffin." Isabel's face, a natural olive from her human days, paled three shades lighter.

"How?"

Isabel gulped, her burnished-wood brown eyes dark with confusion and fear. "Poisoned. Raul and Darren have moved the body to the cellar until you have finished your inspection of his corpse."

"The remains did not dissipate? Was he poisoned by silver? Isabel," Godric said, exasperated when the manicured woman shook her head. In his long life, he had heard of many strange things. But never a string of odd occurrences such as this. "You have to realize how highly unusual this situation sounds. Nestmates, I expect this information to never leave this manor. I, and my progeny, will personally explore these issues."

"Very well, Godric," Isabel acquiesced, folding her hands in front of her as she curtsied elegantly.

Turning to the remainder of the line of vampires, Godric announced, "Unless there are matters of grave importance you have to share, you must excuse me while I tend to this first situation."

The vampires disbanded the line and bowed heads to the sheriff as he passed, some more deeply and grandiose than others.

Godric led Isabel wordlessly to the cellar, outside of which Raul and Darren stood on guard. They stood aside for the sheriff and opened the door.

Everything had been cleared of the cellar save a plain 'throwaway' coffin, a box of matches, and a shredded pile of rags. The lid of the coffin had been nailed shut.

"The smell." There was a feint aroma that was altogether intoxicating and familiar, but there was something else…

Isabel interrupted his thoughts. "It smells of death. But with something sweet just under the surface."

Curious now, Godric approached the coffin and pried the lid open with his fingers. The nails clinked against the floor as they were forcibly launched from the wood.

Inside the coffin, one of the oldest members of his nest, James, lay unmoving. His normally dark skin was a very sallow gray. He had been stripped naked. The pile of rags beside the coffin must have been his clothes.

The sheriff carefully rolled James onto his stomach and raked his eyes just as carefully over this side as he had the other. Something in him stirred at the sight of James in his death, a stark mix of pity and jealousy. Tossing those thoughts into the nether of his mind, Godric returned James to his original position.

"There are no markings on his body at all," Godric remarked.

"None," Isabel agreed reluctantly. "Godric, what could have done this?"

"Not anything human. Where is the source of that smell?" Even as he asked the question, Godric leaned his face toward the body and inhaled. "It's strongest around the head. Did anyone examine inside his mouth?"

"No, master," Isabel replied immediately and confidently. "We stowed him for only your examination. I didn't want the chance for anyone to tamper with his body."

Godric placed a finger on the dead man's chin and opened the mouth. James's fangs were extended, stained with blood. The alluring smell gathered in intensity and assaulted the sheriff's nose with such veracity, he had to leap back to keep from sucking the poisonous blood from the corpse's mouth.

"Isabel, do not inhale," he warned. "The smell, and what I am supposing is the source of the poison, must be from the blood of whatever James bit last. You said he attacked Velle's assaulters?"

Isabel clapped her hands over her nose and mouth and nodded mutely.

"He must have bitten one of them. Did he say where this happened?"

A nod in response.

_Schhhk! _Three matches snapped to life and Godric tossed them all at once into the coffin.

Isabel drew closer to her sheriff and he gave her a grim smile, the only comfort he would offer his nestmate.

As they watched the flames slither through the coffin, Godric quietly said, "We must find out what we are up against. I trust you will keep this quiet. We do not need to capture the attention of the Authority."

The fire took a breath as it licked James's body before it realized it was taking a corpse of a vampire and then roared to life hungrily over the undead flesh.

All that remained of James after only a few minutes was a pile of bitter-smelling ashes.

...

"Did you take a bath in an ashtray Godric? You smell awful!" Nora complained when she had finally arrived at the manor.

Godric tilted his head to the side and did not meet Eric's intense gaze. "Just a little fire in the cellar. It has been taken care of. I trust you have made all arrangements to return to the Authority today, then?"

Eric had caught the diversion but Nora was distracted by the thoughts of her home. She nodded quite happily. Her thrill was stunted as she looked troubled after a beat. "I trust, Master, that you will keep my indiscretion as secret as you have in the past."

"Of course. As will Eric. Mainstreaming with humans is the only way." He beamed an almost-authentic smile at his progeny. "Roman's words."

Nora, visibly relieved, bowed her head and placed a very delicate kiss on Godric's knuckles. "Maker, I await our next reunion. The Authority will never turn face your way if I can help it."

"Stay out of trouble," Eric rumbled at Godric's back dispassionately. Then he teased, "A taxing experience for you, I'm sure."

Nora rolled her eyes, but with a smile playing at her lips, at her elder made-sibling before she departed.

Eric waited all of a half-minute before facing Godric expectantly. His ice-blue eyes were full of suspicion and wariness. The former Viking could smell any danger within a fifty-mile radius. "A fire?"

"We have to depart immediately. I will explain on the way."


End file.
